History Main / DeathByWomanScorned

* In ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'' after Rose jumps out of the last lifeboat onto the ship to be with Jack, Cal is shown looking extremely jealous as they embrace, so much so that he takes a gun and shoots at them, intending to kill them both.

Alice is dating or married to Bob. Alice finds out that Bob is sleeping with Carol. Alice then kills Bob for cheating on her, and probably Carol too. [[PayEvilUntoEvil This may be even go as far as be presented as a justified act, even if it is in truth a serious crime.]] He'd done her wrong and that's all that matters to her. While the same scenario is a common dramatic plot with both genders, [[TheUnfairSex some modern depictions are more sympathetic]] to [[DesignatedHero Alice]] [[TheUnfairSex shooting Bob-the-cheater than Bob shooting Alice-the-cheater]].

Alice is dating or married to Bob. Alice finds out that Bob is sleeping with Carol. Alice then kills Bob for cheating on her. [[PayEvilUntoEvil This may be even go as far as be presented as a justified act, even if it is in truth a serious crime.]] He'd done her wrong and that's all that matters to her. While the same scenario is a common dramatic plot with both genders, [[TheUnfairSex some modern depictions are more sympathetic]] to [[DesignatedHero Alice]] [[TheUnfairSex shooting Bob-the-cheater than Bob shooting Alice-the-cheater]].

-->--''Literature/TheStateOfAffairs''

Alice is dating or married to Bob. Alice finds out that Bob is sleeping with Carol. Alice then kills Bob for cheating on her. [[PayEvilUntoEvil This may be even go as far as be presented as a justified act, even if it is in truth a serious crime.]] He'd done her wrong and that's all that matters to her. While the same scenario is a common dramatic plot with both genders, [[TheUnfairSex some modern depictions are more sympathetic to [[DesignatedHero Alice]] shooting Bob-the-cheater than Bob shooting Alice-the-cheater]].

Alice is dating or married to Bob. Alice finds out that Bob is sleeping with Carol. Alice then kills Bob for cheating on her. [[PayEvilUntoEvil This may be presented as a justified act, even if it is a serious crime.]] He'd done her wrong. While the same scenario is a common dramatic plot with both genders, [[TheUnfairSex some modern depictions are more sympathetic to Alice shooting Bob-the-cheater than Bob shooting Alice-the-cheater]].

* Discussed and [[PlayedForLaughs Played for]] BlackComedy in ''Manga/SPYxFamily''. In the second chapter/episode, when Yor meets Loid for the first time, she's about to ask him to pose as her fake boyfriend at a party, only for Anya to show up calling him "Daddy". Yor assumes Loid is a married man and thinks to herself that there are women who kill for things like this... before adding that she'd probably kill Loid's wife first if that happened (as she is a ProfessionalKiller, [[HitmanWithAHeart albeit one with a heart]] who would NeverHurtAnInnocent.)

* Music/WillieNelson's "Red Headed Stranger".

* ''Series/DecisionesExtremas'' depicted a rare male example in the episode "A imagen y semejanza". Gloria cheats on her husband Esteban with another man, which prompts Esteban to murder her before she could run away with said man.

!!'''As a DeathTrope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

!!'''Examples:'''

[[AC: Woman Kills Man]]

[[AC:Man Kills Woman]]

[[AC:Attempted Murder/Other]]

* Played for laughs in one of the in-game books in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]''. A Dark Elf man returns home to find his wife cheating on him and murders her in a rage. When questioned at his trial why he murdered his wife instead of her lover, he replies, "I thought it better to kill one woman than to kill a different man every night."

By contrast, many RealLife cultures in the past have tended to go easy on the husband's killing either a cheating wife and/or the man she was cheating with. Not so much in the modern Western world, though, and stories produced from that perspective don't usually treat it as justified in anything more than a passing reference/joke, which is why most examples here come from songs. A full story involving someone killing their straying lover usually has to admit that this is a ''bad'' thing to do, no matter the gender and may even be recognised as DisproportionateRetribution if at least in-the-heat-of-the-moment as a bit of a mitigating factor.

[[AC: Woman kills Man]]

* In one DreamSequence in ''Film/TheSevenYearItch'', Richard's wife, having found out about the girl, returns home to ShootOutTheLock and then shoot him "five times in the back and twice in the belly."

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheGreenMile'', there was only one woman on the Mile, who put up with her husband beating her every night, but killed him the moment she heard he was cheating on her. Her sentence was commuted to life and she died a free woman.

*** Annie found out her boyfriend was not only married but was a Mormon with six wives. She poured arsenic in his drink that night.

* The ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' media series of games, anime and manga have this going on in some of the bad endings when it's not MurderTheHypotenuse. The most infamous examples involve Makoto being stabbed by Sekai (in both the anime and one of the original game's bad endings), but it also includes Yuuki being beaten to death by ''Kotonoha'' in Cross Days.

[[AC:Man kills Woman]]

* ''The Moonlit Road'' by Creator/AmbroseBierce is a ghost story about the murder of a woman, and one of the perspectives suggests that her husband strangled her in a jealous rage after seeing a man outside and assuming she was being unfaithful.

* Depictions of the life of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII are likely to include a bit of this, since two wives were executed for adultery, whether true or not. That includes ''Series/TheSixWivesOfHenryVIII'', ''Series/TheTudors'' and ''Series/WolfHall''.

* Shakespeare play ''Theatre/{{Cymbeline}}'' deals with a man attempting to kill his wife because he believes she has committed adultery.

[[AC: Attempted Murder/Other]]

[[folder:Film --Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/AdamsRib'', a wife shoots her husband after finding another woman in his arms, but he survives. Her defense attorney, Amanda Bonner, gets the jury to excuse her actions under the DoubleStandard grounds that a man shooting at an unfaithful wife would not be judged so harshly. Keep in mind that this movie was made in 1949.

* Played with in a ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode where the plot goes both ways - a male character sees himself cheated on, murders both parties, and commits suicide, then a female character goes through the exact same scenario and reacts the same way. In actuality, both characters were being caught up in the psychic playback of events that happened to someone else in the past. And that someone else was not presented as justified, but as disturbed.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'', the Duke attempts to murder the young Duchess for sleeping with the player character. However, he will do this whether or not the infidelity has actually taken place, being pretty much off his rocker, and in either case he is prevented from succeeding.

[[/folder]]

* In Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'', married artist Amyas Crale's [[ADeadlyAffair philandering gets him murdered]]. But the woman who kills him is not the one whom everyone first suspects.

* This is the setup for the Creator/RoaldDahl short story "Literature/LambToTheSlaughter", infamous for its extremely clever TwistEnding. Admittedly, it's stepped up a notch as the husband explains to his wife -- who's ''pregnant with their first child'' -- that he's going to leave her for reasons unmentioned, ending with "And I know it's kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of course I'll give you money and see you're looked after. But there needn't really be any fuss. I hope not, anyway. It wouldn't be very good for my job." [[AssholeVictim You might be tempted to konk him too.]]

* Threatened in the song "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" but the point of the song is that the male character is paralysed, thus why he thinks she's leaving him, and why he can't carry out the threat of "if I could, I'd get my gun and put her in the ground"

** Another Shakespeare play, ''Theatre/{{Cymbeline}}'' also deals with a man attempting to kill his wife because he believes she has committed adultery.

[[folder:Film]]

* One episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' revolved around trying to find out who placed [[ExternalCombustion a bomb in a rental car that killed an Air Marshal]]. While it was originally presumed to be some kind of terrorist act, it turns out that it was placed by a science teacher who got murderously pissed that her husband had a second secret family complete with children. Her attempt got screwed because [[SpannerInTheWorks the rental car's clock was badly wired, which made the bomb go off several hours later than planned]].

* In ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'', the Duke attempts to murder the young Duchess for sleeping with the player character. However, he will do this whether or not the infidelity has actually taken place, being pretty much off his rocker, and in either case he is prevented from succeeding.

* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', Lex Luthor begins dating LadyOfBlackMagic Tala, who later betrays him for not paying enough attention to her. In response, he kills her by using her as a LivingBattery in his plan to [[ResurrectTheVillain resurrect Brainiac]] but she sabotages it by resurrecting ''[[GodOfEvil Darkseid]]'' instead to get her revenge from beyond the grave. She ultimately succeeded, as Lex performs a HeroicSacrifice to save mankind as a result.

[[folder:Film]]

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheGreenMile'', there was only one woman on the Mile, who put up with her husband beating her every night, but killed him the moment she heard he was cheating on her. Her sentence was commuted to life and she died a free woman.

* In ''No Way to Treat a First Lady'' by Christopher Buckley, Elizabeth Tyler [=MacMann=] is indicted for murdering her husband, the President of the United States. The last night he was alive, she confronted him over his latest infidelity and left a mark on his forehead with a Paul Revere soup tureen. Subverted when the actual cause of the President's death is determined to be heart failure induced by an overdose of Viagra.

* In Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Literature/FiveLittlePigs'', married artist Amyas Crale's [[ADeadlyAffair philandering gets him murdered]]. But the woman who kills him is not the one whom everyone first suspects.

* This trope is the entirety of the Oxygen Channel's ''Snapped''. Most episodes cover a RealLife case of an abused and/or cheated-on woman who killed her husband (sometimes father). They try not to paint the women in a sympathetic light, but the show still has a "he deserved it" kind of feel.

* The Investigation Discovery program ''Deadly Women'' falls under this trope as well.
* In the ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "Split Personality", it's "''women'' kill man", as the plot involves a con artist who woos twin sisters and deceives them into marrying him separately via a FakeTwinGambit, both [[GoldDigger for their $2 billion inheritance]] and to satisfy his TwinThreesomeFantasy, only to meet his end once said twin sisters find out about his deceit, overpower him when the opportunity presents itself, strap him to a bed, and [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe cut him in half]] [[ChainsawGood with a chainsaw]].

* Music/{{Cher}}'s "Dark Lady." Here, the main protagonist is a woman who visits the title character, a fortune teller, distressed over a failing relationship with her boyfriend. Unknown to the woman, the boyfriend has been cheating on her and his lover is the "Dark Lady," although this is not made clear until the end of the song. Using foreshadowing, it is clear that "Dark Lady" becomes nervous over her visitor so, after the rigmarole of dealing cards and mumbling incoherently into a crystal ball, draws two cards, gives the vague clue that the boyfriend has indeed been unfaithful and his lover is "someone else who is very close to you," and then advises her to leave and never return... even forget that she even visited. The woman goes home and tries to get some sleep. Until she accidentally gets a whiff of the smell of the room... it was perfume that was identical to the scent she got at the fortune teller's hut. Curious and wanting answers, she makes a return visit to the Dark Lady... and because she is suspicious as to what is going on, brings along a gun. Those suspicions are confirmed when she walks into the back area of the hut... and finds the boyfriend and "Dark Lady" in each other's arms having sex. They're in a state of sexual ecstasy... until they see the boyfriend's angry girlfriend pointing a gun at them... and the gun is loaded... and it is fired.

* Before that there was Brünhild(e) in Norse mythology and in Music/RichardWagner's ''Theatre/TheRingOfTheNibelung'', although in this case Siegfried's potion-induced cheating was combined with him forcing her to marry Gunther. And depending on the version of the myth (though not in the opera), he also [[RapeAndRevenge raped her]] to take away her virgin superpowers.

* "If You Hadn't, But You Did" from the musical revue ''Two on the Aisle'' has a verse beginning in soap-opera-style bathos and ending with a gunshot. It then turns into an angry ListSong running down the reasons for saying goodbye to her husband, most of them having names like Geraldine and Kate.
* In the folk song "William Taylor", Taylor is pressed into the navy, so his girlfriend [[SweetPollyOliver dresses as a man to follow him to sea]]. When she finds him, she learns that he's taken up with another woman, and shoots them both.

* In Pomplamoose's "Bust Your Kneecaps", a girl has been dumped by her boyfriend and she's giving him one last chance to take her back, with deadly consequences if he doesn't. However, it won't be her doing the killing, but her family, who has ties to the Mafia.
-->Johnny, there's still time\\
Together I know, we'd go so far\\
I'll tell Uncle Rocko\\
To call off the guys with the crowbars...
* In the music video for Music/MelanieMartinez's "Sippy Cup", Cry Baby's mother catches her husband and his mistress together in the middle of the night and stabs them to death. When Cry Baby walks in on the murder scene, her mother presses a chloroform-soaked rag over her mouth and nose to knock her out so she won't remember.

* The ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' media series of games, anime and manga have this going on in some of the bad endings when it's not MurderTheHypotenuse. The most infamous examples involve Makoto being stabbed by Sekai (in both the anime and one of the original game's bad endings), but it also includes Yuuki being beaten to death by ''Kotonoha'' in Cross Days.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''TheMailman'' the protagonist's father killed his wife and her lover, then himself.

* "The Cold, Hard Facts of Life," most famously by Porter Wagoner. Here, the cuckolded husband is a traveling businessman whose frequent trips away drive the wife to cheat. He finally finds out when he comes home unexpectedly, hoping to surprise his wife with wine and a romantic dinner... but at the liquor store, he runs into a man that -- unknown to him -- is sleeping with his wife. The ending is clear: the main protagonist stabs his wife and her lover to death, and he's left to rot in a jail cell as he awaits trial.
* "Blood Red and Goin' Down," a No. 1 country hit by Music/TanyaTucker in 1973. Then a winsome teenager, the lyrics of this murder ballad fit Tucker well as a young pre-teen, forced to tag along with her father, who is bloodthirstily angry at his wife after learning she had slept with another man (the latest in a line, as implied by the lyrics). Eventually, the man finds his wife, in the arms of another man, in a ramshackle tavern and carries out his brutal deed... but not before sending the daughter outside. However, unknown to the father, the girl watches the slaying.
* "She Wore Red Dresses," an album cut and de facto title tune to Dwight Yoakam's 1989 album ''Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room''. Yoakam takes the role of the cuckolded husband, who married a beautiful young woman purely for how sexually enticing she was while wearing red dresses. The lust eventually dies and she walks out on him; betrayed, the angered husband stalks his wife, tracking her down to a lonely hotel, where he finds her asleep in the arms of her lover. After summoning his courage and bitterly cursing his wife, he walks in, holds the gun to his wife's head... and fires before she knows what's going on. "''She wore red dresses/but now she lay dead''."
* Ambiguously implied in "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)," a No. 1 country hit by one-hit wonder Leon Ashley in 1967 (and re-recorded many times, including by Music/KennyRogers). The ambiguity comes at the end of the song's second verse, where the cuckolded husband -- having snapped for not knowing why his wife has been unfaithful or what qualities her lover has that he might not -- takes a gun and demands an immediate answer, "''if there's time before I pull this trigger''."
* The rap song "Scandalous Hoes II", which ends with murdering the woman for cheating, presented as completely justified
* Possibly subverted in Music/TheDarkestOfTheHillsideThickets' "Jimmy the Squid". Jimmy is accused of killing his mate for sleeping with another squid. He says he's innocent.

* "Hey Joe", recorded by a number of artists, [[CoveredUp most famously]] by Music/JimiHendrix.

* Weirdly appears on ''Series/{{Rome}}'' when Vorenus finds out his grandson is in fact his wife Niobe's son by another man. According to Roman custom at the time it was not only Vorenus' ''right'' to kill her for her infidelity, but it was also what honor demanded (and Vorenus is constantly shown to put HonorBeforeReason). He grabs a knife but doesn't seem like he will be able to actually kill her, so she flings herself off a balcony and takes her own life as a final act of love.
* In Creator/OscarWilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol," this is the condemned prisoner's crime.
-->He did not wear his scarlet coat,\\
For blood and wine are red,\\
And blood and wine were on his hands\\
When they found him with the dead,\\
The poor dead woman whom he loved\\
And murdered in her bed.
* The third verse of Music/DrDre and Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Guilty Conscience" has the two arguing as [[GoodAngelBadAngel a man's conscience]] on whether or not to kill his cheating wife and her lover (Dre tries to talk him out of it, but Slim Shady is goading him to go ahead). They both agree to do it after Slim calls Dre out on his own past ("You gonna take advice from somebody who slapped Dee Barnes?").
* Appears to be the case in Music/NickCave & the Bad Seeds "We Came Along This Road". The song's lyrics start with "I left by the back door, with my wife's lover's smoking gun" and then describe the protagonist going on the run.
* Music/RichardMarx, "Hazard", ''maybe''. The male character's accused of it, but the truth is intentionally ambiguous.
* Played with in "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" (a No. 1 pop hit by Vicki Lawrence and famously covered by Music/RebaMcEntire). A man finds out that his wife's been the town bicycle while he's been gone, and goes to kill her and his friend with whom she was last cheating on him. He gets arrested for it, and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the title suggests]], gets the death penalty. Subversion: the husband didn't do it. His little sister got to the cheating wife and the friend first.
* The end of the video for "Down Low" from Music/RKelly featuring [[Music/TheIsleyBrothers Ron Isley]] as Mr. Biggs. After the latter walks in on his wife cheating on him with the former, who was told to keep her company in Biggs's absence but not to touch her, he has the former beaten by his bodyguards and left in the desert. Biggs's wife is found in intensive care, having also been beaten for her infidelity, by a wheelchair-bound R. Kelly, who witnesses her succumb to her injuries.
* "E," a piece of CountryMusic by Matt Mason, is a case where it's clearly unjustified being a variation on the folk song [[OlderThanRadio "Matty Groves"]]: the husband (the singer) finds his wife ("you") in bed with her lover, and, instead of just killing them, decides to give them a fighting chance, [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame giving them a car, a gun, and a short chance to run before he comes after them.]]
-->[[LampshadeHanging Man, as far as I can tell we might both end up in hell]],
-->But [[IllKillYou you're sure as hell goin' first.]]

* ''Film/{{Fracture}}'' begins with the protagonist shooting his wife for cheating on him with a policeman.

* This trope comes up in ''Literature/LetMeCallYouSweetheart'', and is ultimately {{defied|trope}}. Namely, when Charles Smith found his daughter Suzanne had been fatally strangled, he believed her husband killed her for having an affair. He believed that a jury would be more sympathetic towards her husband if they knew of her infidelity, so he [[HidingTheEvidence hid the evidence of her affair]] – including some jewellery her lover gave her and a note he'd sent her – then testified that as far as he knew Suzanne was a faithful wife who was afraid of her husband's jealous rages. Consequently, Skip received life in prison despite insisting that his father-in-law was lying. The irony is that Skip ''didn't'' kill Suzanne and Smith's actions have enabled the real murderer to get away with it.

* This is the setup for the Creator/RoaldDahl short story [[Series/TalesOfTheUnexpected "Lamb to the Slaughter"]], infamous for its extremely clever TwistEnding. Admittedly, it's stepped up a notch as the husband explains to his wife -- who's ''pregnant with their first child'' -- that he's going to leave her for reasons unmentioned, ending with "And I know it's kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of course I'll give you money and see you're looked after. But there needn't really be any fuss. I hope not, anyway. It wouldn't be very good for my job." [[AssholeVictim You might be tempted to konk him too.]]

* In Susan Dexter's ''The True Knight'', the opening scene is when the queen, having killed the king who sent her away to bring out his mistress openly, now goes to kill his mistress and their daughter. (The daughter is only saved by a BalefulPolymorph.)